Don Rickles Beats Up Trads: Louie Verrecchio Replies

In a recently published interview [translation courtesy of Rorate Caeli], Francis said:

I always try to understand what is behind those individuals who are too young to have lived the pre-Conciliar liturgy, and who want it nonetheless. I have at times found myself in front of people who are too rigid, an attitude of rigidity. And I ask myself: how come so much rigidity? You dig, you dig, this rigidity always hides something: insecurity, at times perhaps something else…

Rigid. Insecure. Defensive.

This from the same man who said, “One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith.”

While there can be no doubt that Francis intends to criticize those who are devoted to the traditional Mass, the charge of “rigidity” is well and truly deserved.

This is why we are deeply devoted to the venerable ancient rite of Holy Mass strictly observed.

This is why we are firmly inflexible rather than lax or indulgent when it comes to the one true Faith that is conveyed in a precise and accurate way in its offering.

The reason Francis finds this perplexing is equally as simple: As one can hardly deny, the man has little if any sensus Catholicus.

This much is evident as he went on to say:

Pope Benedict accomplished a just and magnanimous gesture [translator’s note: the motu proprio ‘Summorum Pontificum’] to reach out to a certain mindset of some groups and persons who felt nostalgia and were distancing themselves. But it is an exception. That is why one speaks of an ‘extraordinary’ rite. The ordinary in the Church is not this. It is necessary to approach with magnanimity those attached to a certain form of prayer. But the ordinary is not this. Vatican II and Sacrosanctum Concilium must go on as they are. To speak of a ‘reform of the reform’ is an error.

Let’s be clear: Speaking of the traditional Mass as an “extraordinary rite,” as Benedict XVI most certainly did, has always been a laughable inversion of reality, and there can be no doubt that the current Pope Contemplatus did the Church a grave disservice in coining that unfortunate phrase.

That said, when it comes to his commentary on Summorum Pontificum, it would appear that Francis is either a victim of genuine ignorance (difficult to believe) or is simply posturing in order to further his own agenda (rather easy to believe based on his history; e.g., the Synod fiasco).

In any case, Summorum Pontificum has little to do with reaching out to some ill-defined group of persons who are paralyzed by nostalgia.
In the Letter to Bishops that accompanied Summorum Pontificum, Benedict wrote:
What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.

Get that, Francis?

The traditional Latin Mass isn’t just a “certain form of prayer” preferred by certain intransigent people; it is sacred and great for every generation, and a firm devotion to said rite can scarcely be considered harmful.

While Francis is pleased to paint the traditional Mass as “an exception;” Benedict, by contrast, declared that the ancient rite “was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted.” (ibid.)

In fact, the central point of Summorum Pontificum is to make plain that “the priest needs no permission from the Apostolic See or from his own Ordinary” in order to offer the traditional Mass.

So much for it being “an exception.”

Francis went on to suggest that Saint Vincent of Lérins would agree with his criticism of those “rigid” persons who desire the ancient rite, saying:

Tradition blooms! There is a Traditionalism that is a rigid fundamentalism: it is not good. Faithfulness instead implies a growth. Tradition, in the transmission from one age to the next of the deposit of the faith, grows and consolidates with the passage of time, as Saint Vincent of Lérins said in his Commonitorium Primum.

Given that Francis already enjoys a well-earned reputation for twisting Sacred Scripture to say whatever he wishes it to say, one can hardly be surprised that he is playing fast and loose with St. Vincent’s reputation.
The following from St. Vincent of Lérins makes it rather clear where he truly stood:

Now in the Catholic Church itself we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all … we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed.

Make no mistake about it; St. Vincent of Lérins would have condemned Francis’ decidedly modernist attitude toward tradition.

You see, just like us, St. Vincent was as rigid as they come, and for the very same reason:

6 comments on “Don Rickles Beats Up Trads: Louie Verrecchio Replies”

Much is being revealed in the way some Hillary Clinton supporters are behaving in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election to the Presidency of the United States.

For instance, there are the teary-eyed teenagers and young adults taking up space at so-called “institutions of learning” who, ever since the election results were made final in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, have been rendered practically catatonic and left curled up in a fetal position (which is ironic given their attitude toward infanticide).

This implies, of course, that for every emotionally paralyzed student there is at least one equally unhinged parent or guardian that provided the dysfunctional home in which they were raised.

In many places, there are evidently a boatload of irresponsible educators on hand only too pleased to abandon to important work of teaching in favor of coddling the sniveling little drama queens.

Speaking of drama queens, there are the apoplectic Hollywood hypocrites and news media leftists who are using the public forum with which they’ve been blessed to label 50+ million hard working Americans as “uneducated racists and homophobes” thus inciting raw hatred while hiding behind slogans allegedly promoting “love.”

Then there are those who must be understood and engaged, not just as whiners and whackos, but for the criminals that they truly are; namely, those who have no respect whatsoever for the rule of law and have since taken to the streets to disrupt the lives of as many other citizens as possible.

Most on the other side, both in the U.S. and abroad, seem to be looking upon this spectacle with a degree of incredulity; stunned, as it were, by the sheer senselessness of it all.

As with most things, however, simply taking a step back and viewing the situation through the lens of Catholic tradition provides a great deal of clarity – in the present case, enough to make it clear that the unseemly behavior of the #notmypresident crowd actually makes perfect sense.

You see, the one thing that all of the aforementioned Hillary supporters have in common is that their behavior is a natural byproduct of “liberalism;” not as defined by political pundits, but as taught by the Magisterium of the Holy Catholic Church.

In the words of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, “liberalism” may be broadly understood as a “disposition of the soul that leads a man to deny the sovereignty of God and to refuse to submit to it.” (cf Against the Heresies)

Sure, it is commonplace for the practitioners of liberalism to claim allegiance to God – importantly, however, not as made known according to Divine revelation, but only insofar as they choose to define Him.

When liberalism as such is embraced, the self is elevated above all else. Ultimately, therefore, the liberal is left to think and to act according only to the dictates of unconstrained personal opinion; i.e., “to deny the sovereignty of God and to refuse to submit to it.” (ibid.)

In so denying God, liberalism necessarily entails the denial of objective truth itself, and this, of course, is the very definition of what it means to abandon reason and intelligence.

By contrast, authentic liberty “belongs only to those who have the gift of reason or intelligence.” (cf Pope Leo XIII, Libertas)

Pope Leo XIII further contrasts liberalism and liberty thus:

The unanimous consent and judgment of men, which is the trusty voice of nature, recognizes this natural liberty in those only who are endowed with intelligence or reason; and it is by his use of this that man is rightly regarded as responsible for his actions. For, while other animate creatures follow their senses, seeking good and avoiding evil only by instinct, man has reason to guide him in each and every act of his life. (ibid.)

When liberalism is embraced; objective truth thereby having been denied, what remains in the aftermath is little more than abject emotionalism that serves to feed man’s inclination toward evil.

It is with all of this in mind that such things as young adults wailing in fear of phantom incursions against their precious little “rights,” news personalities nodding in agreement to the claim that Trump’s election was a “whitelash against a black president” (even though Hillary-of-the-Hamptons is about as pale skinned as they come), and local government officials doing their level best to incite a “national shutdown on inauguration day” makes perfect sense.

Each and every one of the truly deplorable persons mentioned above, and others like them, are operating on emotional auto-pilot; having long since chosen to abandon reason and intelligence in favor of elevating personal opinion over objective truth.

In other words, these are the actions of individuals who have chosen to coronate themselves; claiming an autonomy that proposes to reign over and against the Sovereignty of Almighty God.

And now for the bitterest observation of all:

The reason so many have done so is, first and foremost, because those who have been charged with proclaiming the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the name of Holy Mother Church have been failing in that duty for more than half-a-century.

When it comes to social issues in our day, “Jewish” has become synonymous with LGBT activism, radical environmentalism, and, of course, abortion-on-demand.

Needless to say, these are the core Democrat Party principles upon which Hillary Clinton ran her campaign.

The Pew Research Center’s Preliminary Report on Election 2016 indicates that former Secretary of State Clinton captured well over two-thirds of the Jewish vote; just as every Democrat candidate for the U.S. Presidency has for decades.

Then again, this same report indicates that Clinton received 45% of the Catholic vote.

When confronted with the latter statistic, so-called “traditionalists” (aka Catholics) and their neo-conservative friends alike are quick to dismiss the very idea.

Those who voted for Clinton are simply “Catholic in name only!”

Though it may be far less obvious, on a certain level the same can be said of the so-called “Jewish” vote.

To be very clear, we must acknowledge that what passes for the “Jewish” religion today is not the religion of Our Lord; for the simple reason that it rejects Christ and therefore God Himself. In fact, we may say that the “Jewish” religion truly only exists in its fulfillment in the Holy Catholic Church.

Even so, the Divine Law as revealed by God in the Old Testament endures; indeed, it is unchangeable, and it is this upon which authentic “Jewish” morality, if you will, stands.

With this in mind, one may reasonably insist that “Jewish” is just as objectively incompatible with Democrat social policies as “Catholic” is.

Sure, the great majority of self-identified Jews in our day would disagree, but not all.

For example, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, founder of the organization “Jews for Morality,” penned an Open Letter to Francis just ahead of his visit to the U.S. entitled:

Dear Pope Francis: Please help us fight the ‘spiritual Holocaust’ of gay unions

The reason Rabbi Levin’s letter received precious little media attention is obvious. I mean, we can’t have a prominent rabbi alerting the broader Jewish community to the abomination of its politics in the eyes of God, can we?

Rabbi Levin’s letter to Francis reveals not just the selectivity of the media, but even more so the sheer hypocrisy of secular Jewish groups and their leaders.

Can you even imagine the firestorm that would have been unleashed if a Catholic priest or Evangelical minister had publicly labeled gay unions a “spiritual Holocaust”?

There can be no doubt that Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League would have vehemently denounced this invocation of the Holocaust as tantamount to blasphemy!

In any case, Rabbi Levin went on to explain his thinking to Francis:

What can possibly be worse than the murder of an innocent? The Rabbis teach us that introducing a person into licentiousness and promiscuity is a greater spiritual transgression than murdering him! For murder only terminates “this worldly” life, while one who is introduced, encouraged or supported in promiscuous behavior is being eliminated “spiritually” in this world and the next! The misbehavior may well be passed down by the sinner to future generations, as well as to other associates. Thus one may posit that encouraging and codifying promiscuity is a “spiritual” Holocaust!

Now this is what I would call an authentic “Jewish” approach to the LGBT agenda; an approach based on the revealed Divine Law.

Back to the matter of elections…

In 2008, as spokesperson for the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada, Rabbi Levin issued a statement to Jewish voters:

Candidates who support abortion on demand, the homosexual agenda, liberal attitudes towards pornography of any sort — are antithetical to our way of life and it is forbidden to support or vote for them.

This year, Rabbi Levin went a step further, issuing a statement in the name of his organization, Jews for Morality, which read in part:

Hillary Clinton has made it crystal clear that she totally supports the right to murder babies in the womb, up to-and-including the moment of birth.

She has made it crystal clear that religious Americans under her regime will be forced to yield to the politically-correct demands of the moral anarchists who have become so influential in today’s Leftist Democrat Party.

For those reasons, we feel that it is vital that all decent, family people in America take an active role in electing DONALD J. TRUMP for President.

Get that? Jewish morality actually prevailed in Election 2016!

Be sure to share this with any Jewish friends you may have who are either apoplectic or despondent given the fact that Donald J. Trump is now better known as President-Elect.

Below is the official “Statement from Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America on the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States” along with my own commentary:

Planned Parenthood has been here for 100 years, and one thing is clear: We will never back down and we will never stop fighting to ensure that Planned Parenthood patients have access to the care they need, people who come from communities that need our continued support in this new reality – immigrants, people of color, the LGBTQ community, people of faith, and more.

The LGBTQ community? Since when are these people in need of abortions? Oh, yea… that’s right – Planned Parenthood tests for STD’s as well.

In any case, make no mistake, with a better than 30% share of the lucrative abortion industry in the U.S., their bread and butter is genocide; which leads me to wonder exactly how Planned Parenthood thinks they’re caring for “people of faith.”

Health care should not be political.

OK, fine, but since when does murdering the unborn qualify as “care” for anyone’s health?

Every day, women walk out of those clinics saddled for life with the guilt of having exterminated their own child. Some “health care,” eh?

Even less can it be said that Planned Parenthood provides “health care” for the more than 300,000 innocent children that are unceremoniously dismembered by their abortionists every year.

Every morning, Planned Parenthood health center staff across the country wake up and open their doors, as they have this morning, to care for anyone who needs them, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, income, or country of origin.

“Health center staff… to care for anyone…” There she goes again!

One thing here is true: When it comes to murdering human beings, Planned Parenthood does NOT discriminate.

They will do so today, they will do so tomorrow, they will do so every day as they have for 100 years.

Perhaps, but eventually the “tomorrows” will come to an end for all of us, including Cecile Richards, who will then find herself standing before Christ to answer for all of the precious human beings that her organization slaughtered. So too will all who supported their efforts.

The thought is enough to make one shudder!

Let us hope that President-Elect Trump will make good on his promise to defund this diabolical operation, and very soon after his inauguration at that.

Lastly, the Republican Speaker of the House (and Catholic), Congressman Paul Ryan, said that Trump’s election is a victory for the U.S. Constitution.

That may very well be the case, but I will never tire of making it clear:

When the Constitution of the United States is reigning supreme; the Sovereign Rights of Christ the King are necessarily being denied.

As such, we must pray constantly for the conversion of all who do not presently embrace the one true Faith in its fullness, including the President-Elect and all who exercise civil authority in the various nations.

“When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.”
– Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas

Pope Francis has a pathological obsession with scolding Catholics with whom he disagrees. He is obsessed with the word “rigidity” and the modernist mythology of neo-Pelagian triumphalism. He projects negativity with his endless scolding. He’s like a bitter old Jansenist nun. He is the embodiment of the 1970s-style progressive modernist clericalism that has been destroying the Catholic Church for decades. He needs to get quiet and pray until he comes to his senses.

The comment I made on another post about the Pope is even more relevant to this post so, if I may, I will repeat it here.

“Pope Francis told Father Spadaro he wonders why some young people, who were not raised with the old Latin Mass, nevertheless prefer it.
“And I ask myself: Why so much rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something, insecurity or even something else. Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.” ”

What an unloving, judgemental and patronizing comment! He states that if young people prefer the Mass that was the norm in the Church for over 1500 years then they have some sort of psychological problem and are in fact unloving. How dare he say this and then judge others for being judgemental!
Of all the many comments this Pope has made that have upset me I think this may be the worst; because it is so hypocritical and so nasty – and this from the man who continually judges others for bring judgemental.